On Mar 29, 4:39 pm, "oonzb" wrote:
"Fran" wrote in message

...





The world has Sydney -- my city -- to thank for Earth Hour and like a
great many people, I pariticipated last night. Last year, just 370
cities and towns participated and this year -- 3929 did. Well done
all. From the Chatham Islands in the East to Honolulu in the west, the
people of the world were sending a signal to those at Copenhagen that
we want serious action to achive sustainability on the planet.

It was a very positive experience for my little coterie. In the
afternoon I visited my regular senior citizens and they didn't need
much coaxing to come along to our local informal community gathering
up at our local park. There we spread a tarpaulin while one of my yoga
group lit some old oil lamps which we'd filled with used and filtered
vegetable oil. A couple of those shiny reflective car dashbaord covers
were erected and we sat around with our extended families to exchange
stories on the theme of the days when electricity did not come out of
the power point water did not come out of the tap.

Some of the kids -- wondering what to talk about -- read from their
favourite stories -- The Golden Compass and one of theo Rangers'
Apprentices books. We talked about the difference between magic and
energy and noted Arthur C Clarke's dictum of how any technology that
was incomprehensible to people seemed like magic -- and to most of the
smaller children, not only electricity but matches too seemed rather
like magic. We noted too that unlike magic -- easyt to get energy was
not unlimited.

One of my senior citizens, an old Italian gentleman, spoke about
stealing apples from orchards on nights like this when he was just the
age these kids were, and the kids loved his stories of dodging
Mussolini's buddies. We spoke too of communities long past, of the
significance -- practical and symbolic, of the discovery of the
secrets of fire to human development. One of the women brought songs
from rural India and a portable DVD player where she showed us some of
the dances, another stories from Sierra Leone and we all did some
yoga, drank fruit juice and affirmed our solidarity with our brothers
and sisters around the globe. A good time was had by all 43 men, women
and children.

In the end, we lingered rather longer than the Earth Hour specified --
and my senior folk weren't home safe and sound until well after 10 pm
but one of them commented how nice it was that young people could
still enjoy an evening without being plugged into TV or computer
games.

During the evening, we ensured that a total of 12 households were
using no power beyond their refrigerators, and of these 3 had turned
off their fridges and freezers as well. Of the 43 people, 34 had
either walked or ridden bicycles to arrive (though I had used my car
to pick up my seniors and make the 8km in round trips).

All in all ... a great success.

Yes, it's mainly a piece of symbolism, but symbols are also important.
And this one was also an exercise in community at both the micro and
macro level.

Did you all give those reusable toilet wipes a good workout as well?
Sharing and caring eh?



Had we knwon you were going to make an appearance, we may well have
accommodated you, knowing how much you like them.

Fran